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I Can’t Breathe…!
By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
When you read the recent report from the federal
government regarding the growing poverty gap in America and
its ominous effect on children of poor families, it is quite
apparent that someone is cutting off the life line of
financial oxygen for millions of kids.
Now, the most recent report as stated in a recent
Blade story indicates that about half of all povertystricken
kids attend public schools.
Think about those implications. As society seemingly
increases the chasm between rich and poor and black and
white, it is reflected in both housing segregation and
school segregation.
Money, and access to it, continues to be the final
arbiter between a kid getting a chance to “strut his stuff”
or getting a one-way ticket to obscurity and a dead-end
life.
As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that
appalling statistic means that the once highly-touted and
equal leveling power of the public school is no more.
Once upon a time in America, going to public schools,
good public schools, was a rite of passage for entry into
middle-class America and thus a reasonably solid good life
for the passengers.
Now, with the gap between the one percenters and the
other ninety-nine percenters, that journey is fraught with
hidden land mines and glaring obstacles. It is no longer a
guarantee that being born in America, the richest country on
planet Earth, that a kid, especially a minority kid, will
have a chance to grab that proverbial “brass ring” and enjoy
a semblance of a good life.
Now, if you are poor and black, your chances to break
out and break free are severely circumscribed by your zip
code and what school you attend…or could not afford to
attend.
Yes, being brilliant and being persistent is a
must-needed trait for a kid from a poor housing and school
district to make it; and that’s coupled with a lot of
parental home support and others in the community who care
about what happens to a Shauntae or a DeMarcus.
However, what is seemingly lost in the discussions as
to how to evade the poverty trap is the fact that society is
not willing to spend big bucks on “those kids” as we used to
spend on all kids.
Now, with the budgetary cut monster roaming the halls
of state and federal legislatures, any money that is above
and beyond learning basic math and reading skills can be
demonized as a luxury and not necessary and affordable.
Certain politicos see spending money on “soft soap”
line items such as music, sports, arts and pre-school as not
giving an immediate bang for the spent buck and those school
offerings are prone to be cut in those budget committee
hearings.
When that is coupled with educational report cards that
show that certain school districts are chronically failing
to pass muster, that optic only hardens the will of those
who have the power of the pen to either pass or kill
legislation that would provide more funding for failing
school systems.
I contend that American education is at a crisis point
insofar as the national statistics indicate that we are
drifting further and further apart as a cohesive society and
one of the most important glues that held together our
society was the free access to quality public schools for
all.
As you know in some places the cost of quality day care
and pre-school education can be a monthly amount that is
practically equal to college tuition payments!
It is a terrible thing to create a system in which the
poor are always relegated to the garbage heap of
carelessness or indifference because when you do so, you
have all of the combustibles to create chronic anger and
misery that can reproduce itself in chronic welfare
dependency, criminal behavior and a sense that nothing is
fair.
Even a Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder can see that
services and benefits to poor people and their neighborhoods
are not the same as provided to wealthier zip coded areas.
A kid knows that, when he applies for a job and he
cannot read the instructions to fill out the application, he
is doomed.
A kid knows that, when his text books are five years
older than his white counterpart in suburbia, he is doomed.
A kid knows, when his school cannot afford buses to go
on a field trip to the science museum but his counterpart’s
school just flew out to visit the nation’s capitol,
something is wrong with this picture.
Once a society tells certain children that other
children who live in a better zip code are better than you
and precious financial resources are allocated to back up
that position, a crisis sets in.
It is a crisis of a society that says that they have
no confidence in that neglected child and children, not
being dumb, can sense that they are being written off as
being of no benefit or value.
If the nation does not see a chronically under-educated
populace as a national security issue and an issue that
benefits all of society with workforce that can do more than
change bed pans or flip burgers, we will create a monster
that has a ravenous appetite for revenge.
To avenge what? To seek redress for slights, real or
imagined, that were due to their race or arbitrary zip code
economics that left them at the bottom of the barrel to fend
for themselves the best way they can.
Besides national defense and affordable healthcare for
all, a sound and cutting edge education for all kids should
be a top priority.
Once you place a child in a stranglehold of denying
him or her a chance to get up and get on with their life
through no fault of their own, they will cry out, “I can’t
breathe!”
Contact Lafe Tolliver at
Tolliver@juno.com |
